My
first memory of the old man's face was the same as my last; an out
take from an old Polaroid, taken from a distance. Over exposed in the
August Kentucky sun, late afternoon. He was caught a few steps away
from the outhouse, mid-stride with a raised hand and a wide toothless
grin. Same yellow button up shirt, same patchy scruff with chaw
spiddle.
He
moved slow, but looked pretty good considering the years of swinging
a scythe in someone else's wheat fields, of days in the rail yards,
of holding up his fists to back up his big mouth.
“How
do you like that pretty good beer?”
“It's
pretty good.” I said. “But the glass has...there's chunks of
something stuck on the bottom.”
He
said “That's the best cold water could do.”
The
chair let out a rusty squeak as he leaned back and arranged his legs
into his bullshitting posture. We didn't say anything for a few
minutes, the drone of dog-day cicadas interrupted only by his
occasional sips. Not just the slurping, but the gasped “ahh” that
followed each.
Soon
the slurping beer and swallows were the only sound I could focus on.
Slyly staring from the corner of my eye, the exhale of satisfaction
became more comical. Finally I had to laugh out loud. “Sounds like
you think it's pretty good too.”
“Well,
that's whatcha get when you go without teeth.” He checked the pot
warming by the fire, whistled a quick high note from the heat, and
dropped the cast iron lid back in place. “About another twenny, I
figure.”
He
said getting his teeth knocked out goes back to when he hopped a
freight train to a carnival a couple counties over. They paid out
twenty-five dollars to anyone who could stay upright in the ring, for
five minutes, with their strong man. On the ride out, his mind played
back every fight he'd ever been in. Like the land owner in a dispute
over a day's wage, the two heavies he'd poked with a pocket knife
when they tried to dangle him out a second story window, all the way
back to the school yard bully that deserved everything he got.
“Despite the way the sunlight looked, washing over the fields Id be
working in the next morning, I had a knot in my stomach and no one to
talk to about it.”
He
got up and lifted the lid again, this time using his shirt cuff. He
dug out a couple big scoops of thick soup into a cracked bowl,
made by his father in some small town pottery, and handed it to me.
It no sooner hit my hands than I was jumping to find a cool spot on
the side. Turns out the cool spot was also sticky.
“It's
gonna be hot.” he said as he scooped out some for himself into a
matching bowl.
“There's...there's
still some stuff on the bowl, did you wash these first?”
“Yeah.”
He said, sitting down again, “that's just the best cold water could
do.”
Anyway, he said the strong man beat
him up pretty bad. He ended up spitting out a few teeth in the ring,
probably swallowed the others. He took a big bite of soup and started
gumming a hot potato, cooling it through his words. “Big
son-of-a-bitch. I just had to stay outta the way of his haymakers, wait till he give out, but he still hit me plenty. I'm sure he was
looking out through one eye for a few days after, but damn...I
thought he was gonna kill me. Don't know if anyone woulda stopped him
or not.”
With
two broken ribs he managed to get on a train back home, thanks to a
hand from a few guys already on. The lurching freight car's rocking
motion as it snaked through the hills would normally put him to
sleep, but with busted ribs it was now keeping him awake. Only after
the engine picked up speed in the flats did he finally fall asleep.
When he woke up, come to find out he'd missed his jump and there was
no sign of the two that helped him on. Twenty-five
dollars missing from his pocket.
I
had a hard time finding words. “What did you do?”
The
answer came almost like a punchline. “I went home and took another
ass beating from the old lady, that's what!”
That was the only part that really scared him; going home to explain to his wife. The train, the
fight, losing the money he'd gotten beat up for. “It sounded like a
good idea, and we could sure have used the money. But I never told her how
I felt like such a fool, after the way it ended up. Tried to be a hero, ended up looking reckless.”
He'd
tear the Reaper's nipples off if he ever dared show up for him, but
he always pointed to his wife as the tough one between the two.
“I'm
tired, that's it for tonight. Just leave your bowl and your
glass there on the ground.”
“You
sure? I can bring them up, I'd like to do something to help.”
He
shook his head no, then turned and yelled “Cold Water! Get here!”
Out
from under the side of the porch tripped the dirtiest, floppiest, sag
skinniest, Redbone you ever laid eyes on. He panted as he trotted
over, but you'd swear it was a smile. He got right to work, just
lapping almost every last bit of soup from the bowls. Cold Water was
able to get almost all the pickle jars clean of beer, all but the
bottom.
After
more than a year of my occasional drop-ins and ending-ups at Me Olde
Watering Hole, after months of listening to so many stories between
Lou and Boone, it's to the point you don't know which parts are real
and which are bullshit. Way past the point where it even matters, but
just shy of what you really hope is true.
Boone
had control of the music. Steely Dan, courtesy of the new mp3 juke
hanging on the wall four feet above a permanent dust ring outlining
where the old disc job used to be. He had downloaded their entire
catalog and wouldn't leave it alone. Boone ordered another round in
between the lines of a half-hearted break-up with some sweet young thing and an aging man's bachanalia in TJ. Lou joined us for a
change, lightly gripping a shorty as he leaned his hip against the
bar. Come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever seen him idle
like this.
“I hate that damn thing” he said into the rim of his glass. “Now I gotta redo the whole damn floor. Ain't that a kick in the ass?”
Boone pulled a James Brown maneuver to climb onto his stool and started tapping a Newport on the bar. “I played all of Gaucho. On random."
Boone
suddenly found himself ducking Lou's dish rag. “You know I hate
this shit, why'd you go an do that? Can't understand a word.”
While
the two went back and forth about the complexities of art and the
every day slob's ability to understand it, I faded into the woodwork.
Faded to Babylon. Highway 89. 89 minutes with nothing to do but
drive, swaddled in a valley like the ones you see sofa-sized at starving artist
sales. Scorching my scalp through the sunroof. Listening to the CD
she had made. Put a few days and a few thousand miles between me and
the inevitable, hoping for the clarity that comes once in a great
while. Suddenly I could hear her in the music, us in the lyrics. That
music. One last plea that might be wallered in while away. She didn't
have to talk.
“Dontcha
think?” Boone said, then waited a few seconds for my response.
“Hey, Major Tom. C'mon back.”
I
snapped back to and got the rundown on the conversation that I'd
missed. Boone's point was that just because you don't understand
something doesn't mean it isn't any good. Lou thought that the minute
you have to explain it, you've failed.
“This
is the first cultured conversation we've had in here and you're miles
away, c'mon now. Spill it.”
I
felt my face go red.
“I
was just reminded...I was just thinking about a friend of mine that
almost died.”
Pause
for effect.
“He
was on a bike, hauling ass down this trail somewhere...really
shouldn't have been out there alone. He was the last one
out and trying to outrun some nasty storm clouds. He's so damn scared, no idea what's ahead and the black is bearin' down on him. Shit, he was just trying to hang on. He's duckin' shit, bobbin' and
weavin'. He went over stuff that would've crippled others. The only
sound was his own blood rushing by in his ears. Jarring bones and
crunched joints.”
“The
moment of clarity, right. Listen, we've heard this one.” said
Boone.
But
that wasn't the moment.
“Imagine
the point when you suddenly realize exactly...what it is you want. In
that moment, as the Larkspur whizzed by...as the sweat dripped down
his face, he thought he knew
exactly what he wanted.”
I
leaned back, struck a cocky pose on the stool. Pause for effect.
"But he's not payin' attention, see? Suddenly
he finds himself looking past the tips of his shoes as he dangles
over the edge of the damn trail. Hair pin turn outta nowhere. Had to
be...at least 200 feet down. Not a sheer cliff face you understand,
but close. Eh, maybe the fall wouldn't have killed him. Maybe just
break his legs or neck. Mangled to hell, but he'd live.”
Boone
pointed at me and inhaled, but I interrupted before he could identify
the moment.
“As he dangled...there was no picture show, no life
flashing before his eyes kind of thing. In fact, he said out loud
“so...this is how.” He couldn't say how the wreck happened...and
he couldn't explain how he clambered back up. His brain
redacted all that shit. So he stood there and got his breath for a
minute or two...then started walking, just as he heard the first few
raindrops hit his helmet. He took the helmet off and threw it in the
bushes.”
Boone
raised his eyebrows, I shook my head.
“When he crawled in bed...so damn sore, reaching down to pull up
the sheet took a lot of effort. It hurt to breath in. Anyway, just as he hit the pillow and
that sheet settled on him...he knew exactly what it was that he
wanted. Not at all what he expected either.”
This
pause for effect was too long. Lou broke the silence with a stern
“What?”
“He
was separated from what he wanted by a few days...and a few thousand
miles.”
I've been along this stretch of shore countless times. I've silently watched a thousand cloud veiled sunrises and sang songs to the moon as it disappeared behind the bluff, blood red. I've listened to the waves crash in one night only to be like glass the next morning. You never know what mood the Taking Lake will be in, morning to morning or night to night.
She's always in motion but you'd never know it half the time. Pay no attention to splashes and waves, the current just past your vision is what you need to be concerned about. It takes things, moves things, puts everything in it's final resting spot.
Each stone on this expanse looks just like those around it. Cold and oblivious to the others, it thinks it's on the way to someplace grand. When I pick up one, I can't help but wonder where it came from. I think about how big it used to be. How long till it's crushed to a grain of sand. I wonder when it finally lost it's edge. Side-arm skip it as hard as I can, offsetting it's arrival to wherever the hell it's supposed to be by another 100 years.
Stare into her for long enough and the Taking Lake will start staring back. She may taunt you to try to upset the natural order of things, to take a few steps in and reclaim that dream you threw away a few years ago. The one fossilizing at the bottom in the dark. She'll invite you to pitch a penny and make a wish only to spit out a green hunk of worthless, unrecognizable copper long after you're gone, the wish still thumb-printed into Abe's face under rust.
Every bottle with a message that washes up has writing inside that you recognize as your own.You may get the idea to speed things along, seems the easiest way to go about it would be to get in and let go, just sorta go limp and hope you're lucky as that penny. Fighting it only makes it worse...but isn't that what you do? Seems the best advice would be to let go and let the current take you where it will. You may end up someplace wonderful. Or maybe on the banks of Hell.
Legend has it that she never gives up her dead but for everything the Taking Lake steals, sometimes it gives something back. Each rusted over penny has wish on it, most of which end up as some kid's trophy from a day at the beach.
